[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 116 (Thursday, September 23, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H7545-H7546]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         NATION HEADED IN WRONG DIRECTION FOR JOBS AND ECONOMY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, our Nation is headed in the wrong direction 
on jobs and our economy. And one-party control in the White House, in 
the Congress, in the House and in the other body, the Senate, has made 
for a plundering of our national wealth. We have not seen the type of 
actions that have been going on in this Capital since the time of the 
1920s in the last century: extravagant borrowing, historic debt levels, 
a rising gap between the rich and the poor and a sluggish job market, 
real softness, even with the new term being invented, ``jobless 
recovery.''
  Now, the President says that the reason this is happening is because 
we are at war. Well, Mr. Speaker, this is the first administration 
since the time of Roosevelt that has not been able to create jobs 
during war. In fact, if you look, after World War II, we have had job 
creation by every U.S. President, Democrat or Republican, until now. 
War always leads to job creation, but not under this President, because 
the fundamental economic policies are all out of whack.
  This week, in the business pages of the New York Times, the chief of 
the International Monetary Fund talked about the hazards to the 
international economy as well as to the U.S. economy because of our 
budget and fiscal policies. He says that the United States is going to 
have to tackle its growing indebtedness to avoid a threat to the entire 
world economy. He says that our deficit remaining well over 4 percent 
of gross domestic product for years to come is a risk not just for the

[[Page H7546]]

United States but, indeed, for the entire world.
  He talks about the rising budget deficit, which this President 
supports at $420 billion more this year, and references the 
extraordinary trade imbalance, now at a half a trillion dollars, the 
highest in American history, and he says, these deficits could set off 
a sudden fall in the dollar and reverse any chance of global recovery.
  And others say that these conditions of a high-budget deficit and an 
extraordinary trade deficit will result in the quiet erosion of 
American dominance of the world economy.
  Similarly, an economist with the New York Times had an article this 
week, the title of which is U.S. and Trade Partners Maintain Unhealthy 
Long-term Relationship, and the Institute of International Economics, a 
center of expertise in this field, says, America's constantly rising 
deficits, our budget deficit and trade deficit, are a disaster in the 
making. No one could say it more clearly.

                              {time}  2015

  He says, this substitute for Americans, the positive side of the 
equation is they get to consume more than they produce. And maybe that 
works for a short time. But the down side of the United States is that 
most of their imports are purchased on credit extended by trading 
partners. And that indebtedness is now over $4.4 trillion, nearly twice 
what it was just 4 years ago and an increasingly costly arrangement for 
Americans and a potentially risky one of the Nation's foreign 
creditors, which means that another institute has agreed with what the 
head of the international monetary funds as said.
  Experts are saying that they are alarmed that this set of 
arrangements could unravel abruptly with the dollar falling in value 
and the dollar rising and with inflation rising. The dollar falling, 
inflation rising, that happened during the Great Depression in the last 
century.
  The United States, this article goes on to say, is caught in a 
gradual, almost imperceptible deterioration brought on by the yawning 
deficit in trade and other international transactions and the 
deterioration is going to continue for a long time. No one knows how 
this situation will unwind, but it certainly will.
  The current account deficit was equal to 5.7 percent of domestic 
activity in the second quarter and this was a record and unusually 
rapid rise from the last quarter. In fact, the trade deficit has risen 
to a level of $477 billion, a 10-percent rise just over last year. 
Again, this article says the dollar in response would have to fall in 
value, forcing prices to rise in the United States.
  Mr. Speaker, I know my time has expired, but let me say that the U.S. 
is headed in the wrong direction. We need a fundamental change. That 
change can take place on November 2. Let us put adults in charge.

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